Business Journal: Streetcars To Return

Regional Transit is leading efforts to redeploy streetcars in downtown Sacramento.

Local advocates have been pushing for the return of historic streetcars in some form since the nineteen seventies, they nearly vanished nationwide since the nineteen fifties. But new momentum for their comeback has surfaced in downtowns across the country in recent years.

Now Regional Transit, which would most likely run the service in Sacramento, is supporting the local effort. Laying track for a two-mile downtown loop would cost an estimated twenty million dollars, a fraction of light rail line costs.

Historic cars cost up to a million dollars to restore, but replica cars with the latest technology, are a new option. Public and private funding will be sought to make it happen.